Boxer incarnate Muhammad Ali, the colourful world heavyweight champion at his bragging best in his youthful days when he visited Ghana in 1964, told a cheering crowd at an exhibition bout at Accra Stadium that he was so fast that even a slow movie camera could not correctly project the speed of his punches. Asked how he could withstand the murderous punches of Charles Sonny Liston, the fearsome bad man of boxing Ali retorted “how you can you hit a thing you can’t see”?

Indeed this is the question I would like to ask Ghana Football Association secretary Kofi Nsiah, who told the media that the Football Association had abrogated its sponsorship deal with the now defunct Gateway Broadcasting Services (GBS). The truth of the matter is that the company has declared bankruptcy and my little knowledge about this kind of situation is that the company has been liquidated. In simple language, GBS had ceased to exist so how can you abrogate a contract with a non existing company.

In local parlance they say - when the chief of your village is dead you don’t deceive yourself by saying that he is asleep. The GFA scribe should tell the football public the simple truth that the TV sponsorship deal has vanished together with GBS. Some preferred to call it GTV and Ghana Television had to make repeated announcements to make the distinction clear that it was still alive and kicking and presumably prepared to step in the shoes of their departed counterparts.

Gateway Broadcasting Services might have had the best of intensions to help promote football in Africa by giving extensive coverage to African league worldwide but the global financial crisis could not support their ambition. There is no use crying over spilt milk. The Ghana Football Association must be forthright and look for new sponsors and as I pointed out in an earlier article, they must lower their standards in the search for sponsors and accept the fact that the Ghana league has a long way to go in terms of quality of players and of course standard of play.

One thing GBS would be remembered for was their ability to compel the Football Association to reschedule certain matches for the evenings. I have a special liking for matches under floodlights especially in tropical countries like Ghana. You can in more instances than one expect a cool evening ideal for good entertaining matches.

Talking about cool evenings ideal for football in the tropics brings to mind the high number of football fans who collapsed under the biting sun at the heavily packed Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi during the epic premier league match between the nation’s most favourite clubs, Kumasi Asante Kotoko and Accra Hearts of Oak. The heat was so intolerable that the Fire Service had to come in and spray the thick crowd with cold water, but even with this effort, more than a hundred spectators could not stand the heat and had to be rushed to hospital with a reported death of four at the time of filing this report.

Eye witness reports said the hugely enlarged stadium with a seating capacity of 40,000 was filled to capacity but the mystery was that the organisers say there was a huge quantity of unsold tickets which should be a security concern. The Football Association should also be concerned about the timing of matches during this hot season. The reasons why early kick -offs were introduced may not be necessarily tenable at the moment and we could start some high profile matches at 3.30 pm at the least.

Anyway the large number of fans who could withstand the searing heat in Kumasi witnessed a thrilling encounter which was deservingly won by Accra Hearts of Oak who combined defensive discipline with some wonderful attacking play. No wonder they were two goals up with 15 minutes to go through Hassan Mohammed and Obed Asamoah.

Substitute Stephen Oduro got a consolation 77th minute goal for Kotoko, who felt somewhat aggrieved by the referee’s decision to ignore a couple of infringements in the Hearts box but in the end Hearts had created enough chances to be worthy winners.